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Comment by mlissner | Hacker News Reader

This is fine, but signal still doesn't tell you when the person you're sending to has uninstalled signal. Instead, your messages go into ether and you think the person is ignoring you. It blows my mind they haven't prioritized this. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/11164

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Applications can't determine when they're uninstalled. Or, not reliably anyway, and not while following platform guidelines. So the question becomes how to tell uninstalled vs left in a drawer, powered down, while on vacation.

They just have to tell you if a message isn't received after a day or two. This is already exposed via the check marks, so it's just something they have to amplify with a notification.

Or when you start writing a message to somebody, if they haven't read the last couple messages signal could make that obvious. Etc. Lots of easy fixes.

Those both rely on the assumption that being offline for a little while = app uninstalled. Not always so.

They can just say the message wasn't received. They don't have to say it was uninstalled. Just loudly tell me things aren't working like I expected. That's all this takes.

You could just check for yourself if it's important. I do.

There are multiple anecdotes in this thread, on HN, that people missed that. All GP is asking for is better UX making it more obvious, because being able to check is something other than knowing to check and how to check.

It's the exact same UX as SMS, Telegram, WhatsApp Facebook and (partially) Twitter...

I don't see why that matters? (Especially given that Signal has far fewer users and presumably higher attrition than those other platforms.) If things can be better, than it would be great if they were.

This is bad design. Why excuse bad design? When I send a text message and it doesn't arrive, my messaging app lets me know. With Signal, this is a step backward.

> When I send a text message and it doesn't arrive, my messaging app lets me know

Signal does let you know, it never gets the delivered mark.

That's not letting me know, that's something I have to check.

I meant I check in Signal. It does indicate whether it's received or not and whether it's read or not.

You only know if your SMS fails to send, not if the receiving party has deleted their messaging app, broken their phone, or changed number.

They can determine when did the user logged in last. Signal already tracks this.

That sounds like it would have privacy concerns. I don't want everyone to know when I last was on my phone.

This shows a single check mark, no? Ie it tells you that the user hasn't received the message.

Yea, it seems like this is the most information they could give you without violating the addressee's privacy by revealing whether they have uninstalled the app. I suppose it could be worth it if, when the message remains undelivered for a while, Signal added an explicit note to that effect so the sender doesn't misunderstand.

How can they tell that a user has uninstalled the app? Does uninstalling send a notification to signal.org?

I dunno. It's true they might not even have that information.

Uninstalling doesn't send a notification to signal.org, I've previously messaged a few people without getting a response, later realizing they never got it because they switched phones and stopped using Signal without pressing the "Delete Account" button in Signal settings. The workaround is to have the user install+register again, then press delete.

https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007061192-De...

> Signal must be actively working on your phone to make changes to the account. Register to see these options for your number. Deletion requests are not accepted outside of the registered app because there is no way to accurately verify whether or not a number is truly associated with the requester.

Yes, I expected as much: most users who stop using Signal (because, say, their friends use something else) are more likely to either just stop using it or uninstall the app, without explicitly deleting the account.

FCM system they use to deliver notifications will return the delivery ID as no longer valid after uninstall though.

Yes, exactly this. All that's needed is to tell senders when a message wasn't received after X hours.

You don't have to figure out if the user uninstalled. This also happens if they get a new phone and don't re-install on it, so relying on uninstalls wouldn't work anyway.

Exactly, I messaged someone multiple times and didn't get a response. I assumed they weren't interested in hanging out any more.

I found out many months later when we ran into each other by chance that they don't use Signal anymore and my messages had gone to a blackhole..

Another pain point for me: when I send an SMS to someone, I expect to get replies on SMS not on Signal. Don't try to replace SMS. It's just really annoying to have half the conversation in the text messages app and the other half in Signal app.

This is exclusive to the iOS version. Apple won't let Signal handle the SMS.

On android it easily replaces messages app and you do all messaging, SMS and signal in one chat.

Complain to Apple. Not to Signal.

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